Tiny cyborg beetles could recharge just by flying

Jan 21, 2013

No need for new batteries as they fly over battlefields or
into disaster zones

The
miniature device placed on this beetle may make it the world's smallest cyborg.
Electrodes implanted in the brain and wing muscles allow scientists to remotely
control the insect's flight.

Cyborg beetles
being developed for the U.S. military wouldn't need to carry extra batteries
into the battlefield for their tiny spy sensors. The insects' own flying
motions or even body heat could provide the power for the small microphones or
cameras that humans equip them with, according to researchers.

The cyborg insect project
has backing from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA),
which is investigating how some of nature's small creatures can be harnessed as
intelligence-gatherers when the situation is dangerous for humans. Such cyborgs
could provide a faster, cheaper solution than painstakingly engineered tiny
scout robots. Still, they would need a power source for their equipment. "Through energy
scavenging, we could potentially power cameras, microphones and other sensors
and communications equipment that an insect could carry aboard a tiny
backpack," said Khalil Najafi, an electrical and computer engineer at the
University of Michigan. Najafi and doctoral student
Erkan Aktakka have created a piezoelectric generator that converts pressure or
material stress from the motion of an insect's wings into electricity. Such
energy could extend the life of a battery carried by a cyborg beetle and might
even give other researchers a hint about how to power tiny robots.

Previous cybernetic work
with beetles showed how researchers could remotely control them to fly wherever
the researchers wanted them to go.

Such small cyborgs could do
more than scout for U.S. troops. In the aftermath of a disaster, they could
help search ruined buildings or investigate hazardous zones such as the area of
the Fukushima nuclear plant. Najafi and Aktakka
published their latest work on energy scavenging in the Journal of
Micromechanics and Microengineering. Funding came from DARPA's Hybrid Insect
Micro Electromechanical Systems program.